Columbia Business School (CBS) essay prompts are out for 2024-2025 January and August entry applicants! Here is what is new this year:
- August entry – Short Answer Question #2: Asks for your post-first-year summer plans
- Essay #2: Slightly narrower wording that will help you better select an example to share
- Essay #3: A change to the prompt that emphasizes collaboration as part of your Columbia experience
Ready to get to work on your CBS application? Read on.
- Columbia Business School application essay tips
- Columbia Business School application deadlines
- Columbia Business School class profile
Columbia Business School application essay tips
Applicants must complete two short-answer questions and three essays. (Source: CBS website)
Short Answer Question 1: What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (50 characters maximum)
Examples of possible responses:
- Work in business development for a media company
- Join a strategy consulting firm
- Launch a data-management start-up
Note that this has a character (rather than word) limit. Your response must be significantly shorter than a tweet. What do you want to do professionally and in which industry immediately after earning your MBA?
Warning: This question is not asking about your intended area of study while in business school or about a nonprofessional goal or even a long-term goal.
Succinctly define your goal in terms of function (what you want to do) and the industry (or type of company) in which you want to do it.
January Term Short Answer Question: Why do you prefer the January-entry term? (50 characters maximum)
Why should you apply for January entry? It’s an accelerated 16-month program that’s ideal for people who don’t need a summer internship. Consider J-Term if you plan to return to the same industry, head into your family business, or focus on entrepreneurship. January applications are still reviewed on a rolling basis, meaning that they are evaluated as they come in, rather than as a big pool after a deadline. This means that the earlier you submit your application, the more spaces will still be available.
Examples of possible responses:
- Sponsored and plan to return to company
- Plan to take over management of family business
- Tapping into investor network to launch start-up
August Term Short Answer Question: How do you plan to spend the summer after the first year of the MBA? If in an internship, please include target industry(ies) and/or function(s). If you plan to work on your own venture, please indicate a focus of business. (50 characters maximum)
With this question, CBS wants to know that you understand your target industry and that you’re familiar with summer options that can be a bridge to your first post-graduation job/venture.
Research possible summer internship placements using the most recent CBS employment report. As the question clearly requests, spell out your target industry and function. You might not want to name a specific company, given that hiring trends can change between when you submit your application and recruiting season. Show, however, in the way that you phrase your goal that you have a strong grasp on what companies hire summer interns in your intended industry, and for what functions.
If you intend to pursue an entrepreneurial venture, consider the CBS resources that can support you over the summer, such as Summer Startup Track and the Summer Fellowship Program.
Columbia Business School Essay #1
Through your resume and recommendation, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next three to five years and what is your long-term dream job? (500 words)
Columbia’s adcom must really like the answers applicants have been providing to this question, because the prompt is back this year and has been a part of CBS’s application for the past several admissions seasons.
CBS wants you to focus on your career goals for the medium and long term. That means don’t repeat “your professional path to date.” Instead, describe what you want to do three to five years after you graduate, which should build on what you have stated for your first post-MBA job. Make sure to answer the long-term question, and feel free to dream and aspire, but at the same time, reveal a feasible professional goal.
This essay offers you the opportunity to show that you know your intended industry’s opportunities and challenges. If you’re making a two- or three-way career pivot, indicate that you’re aware that those pivots could come a few years after your first post-MBA job. Also, show flexibility. Given the economic, political, and environmental issues the world faces right now, the adcom wants to know that you are open to a Plan A, B, and C.
Note that this question does not ask you how CBS will help you achieve your goals. You’ll have an opportunity in Essay #3 to discuss how you’ll make the most of CBS’s offerings. The adcom already has a strong grasp on the school’s curriculum and resources. You can briefly mention how CBS can help you reach your goals, but don’t include a laundry list of classes or professors. Use this essay’s real estate to talk about yourself and your future.
Guide the CBS adcom to see that you have a purposeful and exciting direction in mind for your future – a future that will transform you into a graduate they will be proud of.
Columbia Business School Essay #2
The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a co-curricular program designed to provide students with the skills and strategies needed to develop as inclusive leaders. Through various resources and programming, students explore and reflect on the following five inclusive leadership skills: Mitigating Bias and Prejudice; Managing Intercultural Dialogue; Addressing Systemic Inequity; Understanding Identity and Perspective Taking; and Creating an Inclusive Environment.
Describe a time or situation when you had the need to utilize one of these five skills, and tell us the actions you took and the outcome. (250 words)
So, what changed in the prompt from last year? Two key phrases:
OLD: “…the goal is for students to explore and reflect … on the following five inclusive leadership skills”
NEW: “…students explore and reflect on the following five inclusive leadership skills.”
Great editing! PPIL is no longer a goal. It’s what you will do.
OLD: “Describe a time or situation when you had the need to utilize one or more of these five skills…”
NEW: “Describe a time or situation when you had the need to utilize one of these five skills.”
You can now focus your essay on just one of the five skills, rather than on a combination of one or more.
First, get to know the PPIL initiative. CBS describes the PPIL as “a one-of-a kind diversity, equity, and inclusion requirement.” You’ll need to attend four PPIL events over the course of the two-year program and submit four reflection forms on what you learned. Columbia has provided a handy guide that defines what the school means by each of the five PPIL leadership skills. Familiarize yourself with these definitions before you write your essay.
Second, reflect on your personal experiences. You can write about a situation at work, during a volunteer stint, or in any other social situation where you acted with inclusive leadership that relates to one of the five skills defined in Columbia’s prompt.
The best examples will demonstrate how you were inquisitive, reflective, and – if necessary – willing to create change within institutions or hierarchies for a more inclusive environment.
Third, organize your thoughts into a narrative. It’s useful to use the SOAR, or SOAR + L, framework to tell your story:
S = Situation. What was the situation you were presented with, and who were the people involved?
O = Obstacle. What was the obstacle or problem you faced?
A = Action. What considerations did you make, and how did you ultimately decide to act?
R = Result. What were the results of your actions?
L = Learning. If you have space, you can summarize what you learned about the importance of acting as a leader.
Remember, don’t worry that the best essays will come from people who have started or joined formal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in their workplace. Individual, one-on-one experiences outside of an institutional framework can be just as powerful, or even more so.
Columbia Business School Essay #3
We believe Columbia Business School is a special place with a collaborative learning environment in which students feel a sense of belonging, agency, and partnership — academically, culturally, and professionally.
How would you co-create your optimal MBA experience at CBS? Please be specific. (250 words)
What’s new? CBS appears to want to do away with navel-gazing. Rather than ask why CBS equals you, this year, the adcom wants to know how you will collaborate to make CBS your optimal MBA experience.
That means CBS should be a good fit. But the adcom asks you to dig deeper. What talents, skills, or ideas will you bring to campus to make the most of your time there, and how will your peers be a part of that story?
To write this essay, think about three to four things that you want out of CBS academically, professionally, and socially. Consider the challenges you foresee in your career. What don’t you know, and who can help you start iterating solutions? What do you like to do socially, and how do you best make friends? Then, research resources that Columbia offers where you can encounter people and create experiences that will help you reach those goals.
Here are some ideas: You could talk about your cluster. What would you do to find opportunities to collaborate? Look through the clubs that are available at CBS, and come up with events you could organize. Mention the skill sets you could offer and what other people (and skill sets) you would seek out to cocreate this experience. Can you collaborate on a PPIL event? Can you help organize an international experience? Do you want to be involved in student government? Entrepreneurial labs? The CBS/well initiative? How can you have with your peers?
Now that you’ve done your research, give yourself loosely 75 words for each focus area. This means you can’t cram in everything you’ve discovered, so be selective. Choose aspects of the CBS program where you can have the most impact and where you will grow the most from interacting with people different from you.
Columbia Business School optional essay
If you wish to provide further information or additional context around your application to the Admissions Committee, please upload a brief explanation of any areas of concern in your academic record or personal history. This does not need to be a formal essay. You may submit bullet points. (Maximum 500 Words)
The CBS optional essay is for you to add additional context or address areas of concern. That means you don’t have to write this essay. Believe me, unless you have a good reason, it will just annoy the adcom.
However, if you had a dip in grades, a period of unemployment, or some other issue that you want to address, this is your opportunity to do so. You don’t want the adcom guessing as to why something is the way it is and coming to the wrong conclusion. And remember, be brief.
Don’t even think about using this essay as a grand finale or wrap-up. And definitely don’t use it to rehash your reasons for wanting to attend CBS. Your required essays should make those reasons perfectly clear.
Columbia Business School application deadlines
January 2025 Entry Application Deadline
|
Round |
Application Deadline |
Interview Decisions Released |
Final Decisions Released |
|
Round 1 |
By June 18, 2024 at 12:00pm (ET) |
Rolling |
Ongoing, and no later than August 15 |
|
Round 2 |
By August 15, 2024 at 12:00pm (ET) |
Rolling |
Ongoing, and no later than October 15 |
The August 2025 application is expected to be available in late June. Updated deadlines will be published in the coming weeks.
***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with CBS directly to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***
Columbia Business School class profile
Here’s a look at the CBS MBA class entering 2023 (January and August). Data taken from the Columbia Business School website:
Applications received: 5,895
Enrolled: 900, divided into 12 clusters
- January entry class size: 219, divided into 3 clusters
- August entry class size: 681, divided into 9 clusters
GMAT score (average): 730
GMAT scores (range): 610-790
GMAT scores (middle 80%): 700-760
Undergraduate GPA (average): 3.5
Undergraduate GPA (middle 80%): 3.2-3.9
Work experience (average): 5 years
Work experience (middle 80%): 3-8 years
At least one year of work experience: 100%
Average age: 28
Age range: 22-40
Age range (middle 80%): 26-31
Women: 44%
Minority of U.S. origin: 43%
International citizens: 47%
Undergraduate major:
- Business: 35%
- Economics: 20%
- Engineering: 17%
- Social sciences: 11%
- Sciences: 8%
- Humanities: 6%
- Technology: 2%
- Other: 1%
Previous industries:
- Financial services: 29%
- Consulting: 21%
- Marketing/Media: 12%
- Technology: 11%
- Other: 6%
- Healthcare: 5%
- Military/Government: 5%
- Real estate: 5%
- Nonprofit 3%
- Energy: 2%
Michelle Stockman has more than 17 years of admissions consulting experience and has had clients admitted to M7 and top-20 MBA programs. She taps into her background as a former admissions staff member at Columbia Business School and as a video journalist to coach MBA candidates to acceptance. Want Michelle to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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